


What Can Be Worse than Trolls?

by PleiadesWhispers



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Crack, Gen, Humor, I blame the livestream chat for this, Spiders, ish, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 17:11:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19795327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PleiadesWhispers/pseuds/PleiadesWhispers
Summary: Emil comes across a frightening creature on their latest book run. Sigrun quickly realizes that of all creatures, trolls, and animals, it's an enemy she dreads the most.





	What Can Be Worse than Trolls?

**Author's Note:**

> In today's stream, there was the discussion on who in the team would be afraid of spiders. A lot of people agreed that Emil would be, as would Sigrun but she'd try to hide it.
> 
> I, ah, immediately got a ficlet idea from that conversation. I hope it's not one of those cases where it was more amusing in my head, and that I got the characterization correct. Many thanks to Windy for immediately encouraging me to write this, and please enjoy this mess.

In record time, Emil had sped out of the adjacent room and slammed the doors closed behind him. His face was paled, eyes widened with fright when he finally turned around. Sigrun stood, drawing her gun off of her shoulders in response, shooting a glance at their scout. When Lalli merely opened an eye in the door’s direction at the sound and dozed back off, basking in the sunlight, she could only furrow her eyebrows as she approached her right-hand warrior. Gods only knew what it was going to be this time, but it certainly wasn’t a troll.

Sigrun had opened her mouth, barely able to get a word out before Emil bounded up to her, looking somewhat relieved and rambling with the first thing that he could. “Sigrun! I found the books, but we’ve got a problem, a very, very big problem-”

She raised her hand, cutting him off as she moved to the door. Turning around, Lalli still seemed content where he was, and she smacked the palm of her hand into her face. “Emil, we’ve talked about this before,” Sigrun began, opening the door to the room and walking inside. Seeing absolutely nothing on a preliminary scan, she sighed, motioning for Emil to follow her in. “I know you don’t have much experience fighting trolls now, and that’s alright, but I can’t keep saving your-”

She stopped immediately as Emil made another sound, closing the door behind him while pointing at something in the room. Her eyes followed the Cleanser’s finger to the floor, right at an eight-legged creature. It was no bigger than her thumb, standing still on the wooden floor. Sigrun did her best to muster up a smile, puffing out her chest and ignoring the feeling in her chest of fear that she certainly did not feel (no, not in the slightest!).

“Oh, this ‘lil guy?” She chuckled, hoping that she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt. “Spiders are no big deal,” Sigrun explained, giving a small shrug as she raised her foot, slamming it over the creature. The rush of adrenaline and relief was instantaneous. “You just simply smash them to death, and then they’re dead! Gone! Easier than trolls!”

“Um. Are you sure about that?” Emil gulped, and Sigrun looked down. Under her boot, the spider skittered out, back onto the floor planes. 

Sigrun gave a yelp, her instincts screaming at her to kick it, and she did -- right in Emil’s direction. He gave a scream, leaping over the tiny creature and to the other side of the room. Sigrun backed away from the creature, until she stood next to Emil. At the least, they were closer to the bookshelf now, but their only exit was blocked by the spider.

“Well that worked well,” Sigrun hissed to herself, steeling her ground as she stared down at the spider. “Alright Pretty Boy, got any decent ideas that won’t get us killed?”

“Well-” Emil seemed to hesitate for a moment, before holding up his flamethrower. “I’ve seen stuff from the old world! People use to set spiders on fire then, so we can set it on fire, right?” Emil frantically asked her, holding up his flamethrower. “Just -- a little fire, right at it, and if anything catches on fire, we can put it out and get out with the books on time!”

Sigrun broke her gaze from the spider to stare at Emil. “Old worlders actually did that?” It sounded wrong, and a little crazy to be honest, but it sounded appropriate, too. This room wasn’t good for that, though -- if things did go to hell in a hand basket, they’d be drinking in Valhalla, and it was way too soon for Sigrun to agree to that just yet. “It’ll be our last resort, kid. Think of another idea!” 

“What if we throw something at it?” Emil immediately shot off. “There’s gotta be something we can throw at it!”

“Hold on a moment.” Sigrun held up her hand, a candle suddenly erupting in her mind with an idea. “It’s standing still, see?” She motioned to the small spider. Ever so carefully, she shrugged off her rifle, pointing the barrel in its direction. “We don’t need to get close, and it’ll work better than throwing something.”

“Is that even a good idea?” Emil turned to her, looking dumbfounded at her idea before his gaze moved back to the spider. “What if you miss? Then it’ll come after us!” He hissed under his breath. “We have to set it on fire after we get the bo-OH HELL IT’S MOVING AGAIN?”

The arachnid was indeed speeding in their direction. The two soldiers shrieked, running away from the spider. Sigrun located and climbed atop the dusty, moldy dresser in the corner of the room in her haste to get away from the arachnid. In a swift motion, she grabbed the back of Emil’s collar as he ran by, catching his attention and making room as he quickly climbed up beside her. 

Under them, the furniture creaked. The rotten wood wouldn’t hold them for long. The spider was still moving in their direction. This was it, they were cornered now, and they were done. The least they could do is die in a blaze of glory fighting this spider. Sigrun held up her hand, about to give Emil the signal to set the creature ablaze, when the door to the room was pushed open.

Under the doorway, Lalli’s gaze moved swiftly over the room, landing on the two with a look of confusion. Emil quickly pointed at the spider, shrilly exclaiming, “Get out of here before it gets you!”

Lalli glanced down, staring at the spider, and back up at the two, his look of confusion swiftly faded into his usual look of withering annoyance. With long steps, he moved forward to the spider, and scooped it up into his hands.

Sigrun felt her stomach drop as she lowered her gun; Emil sounded like a drowned rat being stepped on.

They could only watch in awe and shock as Lalli calmly carried the creature out the door to the main room. Emil carefully climbed down from the dresser, and Sigrun reluctantly followed after, turning around once to see the furniture collapse into a dusty heap on the ground. As she moved into the main room, she saw Lalli push open a window, and Emil peering over Lalli’s shoulder. The scout reached out of the window, lowering the spider in his hand to the grass blades that sprouted outside of the window. 

The spider skittered about on Lalli’s palm, and Sigrun felt her breath hitch as it seemed to start climbing up his arm. All too calmly, Lalli moved his other hand, flicking the spider into the grass before it could reach his elbow. It landed atop the blades of grass, clinging on for its dear life before skittering down the sides and into the depths of the greenery. And all too easily, Lalli ducked out of Emil and Sigrun’s reach, shooting them a weary glance before moving back to the book room.

Sigrun could hear Emil give a heavy sigh, probably a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “That’s it then? It’s gone?” He asked, clearly still in the middle of processing this. 

“Oh, yeah,” Sigrun muttered, patting Emil’s shoulder. “I guess our little forest scout’s good at more than just his job. Say, kid, next time you see one of those, instead of screaming at me to do something, learn to crush it under your foot or just get him to do it.”

“Uh-huh,” Emil agreed, still blinking. “Wait.” She could see his eyebrows furrow from the corners of her eyes, as he turned to look at her. “You couldn’t take care of it either! You were running away from it too!” His eyes brightened almost mischievously at the realization. “Waaaaait, are you afraid of spiders?”

“Oh absolutely not!” Sigrun laughed, securing her rifle on her shoulder and hoping for this conversation to end quickly. “Brave warriors can’t be afraid of spiders at all!”

“I’m not sure if I’d call screaming and running up on a dresser brave,” Emil retorted, almost grinning. Wow, was the pot calling the kettle black. “You’re a hunter, right? You fight trolls for a living, sometimes giants, and yet you’re afraid of-”

Sigrun immediately slammed her glove over his mouth; that shut him up immediately. She leaned in very carefully, giving her best, all-knowing captain smile and hiding none of the malice in her eyes. It was the look that had always made the new recruits tremble in their boots when they messed up. “Say a word of this to anyone and I’ll have you do all of Mikkel’s dirty chores for the rest of this expedition.” 

The understanding fear was instantly recognizable in Emil’s eyes, and he nodded. Sigrun smiled, withdrawing her hand and putting her hands on her hips. “Good! Now that that’s settled, let’s get our books and then get out of this dump,” Sigrun exclaimed, turning to walk back into the book room right as Lalli walked out with an armload in tow. “Then we’ll get out, and set this entire building on fire for good measure. If it kills a few trolls on the way, then good.”

Of course, later that night, the entire row of buildings were set ablaze; a little too much charge on the explosives, Emil admitted, but he didn’t look apologetic in the slightest. Not that Sigrun minded, as the entire crew stood behind her to watch the blaze with a mixture of reactions ranging from horror to awe. _This_ would send a proper example to the creepy little crawlies _and_ the trolls, she decided with a grin.


End file.
